# distHaversine

0th

Percentile

##### 'Haversine' great circle distance

The shortest distance between two points (i.e., the 'great-circle-distance' or 'as the crow flies'), according to the 'haversine method'. This method assumes a spherical earth, ignoring ellipsoidal effects.

Keywords
spatial
##### Usage
distHaversine(p1, p2, r=6378137)
##### Arguments
p1

longitude/latitude of point(s). Can be a vector of two numbers, a matrix of 2 columns (first one is longitude, second is latitude) or a SpatialPoints* object

p2

as above; or missing, in which case the sequential distance between the points in p1 is computed

r

radius of the earth; default = 6378137 m

##### Details

The Haversine ('half-versed-sine') formula was published by R.W. Sinnott in 1984, although it has been known for much longer. At that time computational precision was lower than today (15 digits precision). With current precision, the spherical law of cosines formula appears to give equally good results down to very small distances. If you want greater accuracy, you could use the distVincentyEllipsoid method.

##### Value

Vector of distances in the same unit as r (default is meters)

##### References

Sinnott, R.W, 1984. Virtues of the Haversine. Sky and Telescope 68(2): 159

http://www.movable-type.co.uk/scripts/latlong.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_circle_distance

distGeo, distCosine, distVincentySphere, distVincentyEllipsoid, distMeeus

##### Aliases
• distHaversine
##### Examples
# NOT RUN {
distHaversine(c(0,0),c(90,90))
# }

Documentation reproduced from package geosphere, version 1.5-10, License: GPL (>= 3)

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